Starting to look for work...

[snowboarderRN]

Anyone else have ideas or advice on 1st job after school? I know everyone generally says to go and get beat to death in a big med center for a couple of years, but I am not really a big city kind of guy. Is going to a smaller facility setting myself up for a bad situation? I know alot of it depends on personal skill level and level of supervision (or lack therof) but just wanted to get some opinions. A lot of small places seem more than willling to hire new grads as myself...

[redwinggirlie]

You know, patient situations are treated (in a general sense) exactly the same in a big facility as they are in a small facility. Sure, trauma centers will see the trauma, burn centers will see the burns. But for usual non-specialty hospital patient care needs, every hospital sees its share of the same thing. So, that said, I believe you can get good experience in either place. If you want to specialize, go to the place that has that specialty. If not, go where you feel is best for you. Do you have friends who work in hospitals? Ask them how they feel about their employer. Size of facility doesn't really matter IMHO.

[redwinggirlie]

Just had to say I'm jealous of where you live! Think snow!

[passgasser]

Since you posted this in the CRNA section of the board, I'm going to presume that you just graduated from a CRNA program. That makes most of the previous poster's points moot. No, scratch that, it makes all her points moot.

I tell most new grads to go to a big facility for at least a couple of years. The idea is to see and do as many "big" cases as you can. Once you can handle these, you can handle about anything. Like many CRNA's, I did my "time before the mast," then moved on to smaller places. So, I see where my advice could be skewed. If you know what you want to do, explore those possibilities. The one piece of advice I would offer is that you should not go somewhere that you have no backup. If for no other reason, it's comforting to know that if a problem you haven't seen before crops up, then you have someone you can call on to help you.

Just my .02.

[miloisstinky]

I am one of those who believes in getting whooped around your first year or two as a CRNA, then moving on to bread and butter.

BUT, if i did decide to go straight to bread and butter, like passgasser said....make sure you have strong and adequate backup as a new graduate, not just 1 other crna stuck in a room and an attending out to lunch!!!:uhoh21:

[catcolalex]

follow the $.